As I was scrolling my news feed this morning, I came across this article from my colleague Iulian Dnistran, over at InsideEVs. It's an interesting little concept for an electric vehicle charger out of Germany that can be embedded into the ground so as to take up less space than a traditional charger.
Rheinmetall's Curb Charger is an intriguing concept, and I think it'd be great for urban environments where street parking is a necessity for a vast majority of folks: your Chicagos, your Los Angeles', your New Yorks where apartment living represents the vast majority of inhabitants and parking is limited. It could even work in the suburbs or for those who don't want the space displacement of a wall charger in their homes. Who here doesn't need more garage space for lawn tools or fishing poles?
But despite my thinking it's a cool concept, I quickly came to a question that has continually plagued me since the electric vehicles went mainstream: What the hell is wrong with the gas station concept? If there's one single issue that's plagued EVs, it's infrastructure. So after all the complaints and issues we've felt with the EV industry trying to reinvent the gas pump with apps, new physical infrastructure, and other concepts like Rheinmetall's, why can't we just admit that the gas pump—but make it EV—would just freakin' work?
